Observing the recent creation of this New Homes Quality Board to place the New Homes Ombudsman Service right into position, a Scottish building attorney has urged the board to provide the ombudsman broad regulatory powers and comprise customers who instruct functions to redesign, redesign or expand their present houses.
But, Ross Taylor, building law expert at Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie LLP, considers additional measures need to be taken to adequately protect customers.
Mr Taylor explained:”While I welcome the creation of this New Homes Quality Board, also think it is a positive step, I believe more must be done in order to protect all customers — not only those people who are purchasing new build houses.
“Obviously, it is critical that new build properties are of a high quality, but we need to also ensure customers are protected against the bad workmanship of Allied builders carrying out functions on existing buildings.
“Take the dreadful fire in Grenfell Tower for instance — that wasn’t a new construct, and also the cladding was installed during renovation works which occurred a year or so before. This episode has truly brought the problem of housing criteria to the end, along with the cladding crisis continues to rumble on a lot of decades after.
“But, I think this shows why it is so vital for the range of law in the building sector to be widened when we genuinely need to protect customers.”
He added:”Not only did I support the planned bill — I argued that the eventual Act ought to go even farther, so as to provide better protection to homeowners.
“I feel that a very simple way to solve the rogue builder may be integrated into a future Bill, necessitating any contractor that undertakes functions under contract to a residential occupier to get insurance that the homeowner could call upon to the remediation of faulty functions in case of the contractor’s bankruptcy”
“It’s as much in the interests of the building industry this comes to pass, to ensure high excellent construction is reached in a compact way across the united kingdom, and also the UK construction industry is shielded against rogue programmers”
